Microsoft challenges Google’s artificial brain with ‘Project Adam’

Artificial intelligence and distributed computing researchers at Microsoft have announced a breakthrough in speed and efficiency with a project codenamed Adam, built primarily from commodity PC hardware.

Microsoft has publicly disclosed details of Project Adam for the first time, and claims its solution is 50 times faster and more than twice as accurate as a similar Google project, while using 30 times fewer machines.

The team of four Microsoft Research engineers behind Project Adam decided to focus on visual recognition, one of the key principles of deep learning that is necessary to develop true AI. Project Adam can identify and categorise photos with unprecedented detail – Microsoft used an example in which specific sub-breeds of dogs were identified. Other suggested use case scenarios included foods being instantly recognised so that users can access nutritional information, insects classified as poisonous or not, and skin lesions identified so that users can be alerted to potential health problems. Additionally, the system could power new tools to help visually challenged users do all kinds of things that were previously difficult or impossible.